


SPINNING

by rubyelf



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 08:25:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyelf/pseuds/rubyelf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in response to the following request from a friend: "David is getting sick, though nobody can quite figure out what's wrong. Except perhaps he does know and just doesn't want to bother anybody with it as he considers himself more 'background noise' than anyone of importance. Cue worrying, confrontation, admissions, et cetera."</p>
<p>SUMMARY: Dave is annoyed with himself for making everyone's life difficult by getting sick. Especially Viggo's, since Viggo is nice enough to keep an eye on him. </p>
<p>Light smut, a nice hot shower, and an overprotective Bean makes an appearance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	SPINNING

......................................................................................................................................................

“It’s no good,” the makeup girl said, rolling her eyes.

Dave frowned. “What?”

“I thought you were supposed to be at home resting,” she said, grabbing him by the chin and tipping his face up to study it. “You’re still not over that flu you had. You look terrible.”

“Thanks,” he muttered, pulling away. “Didn’t know they hired me for my good looks anyway. Last I heard, it was just because my nose matched Bean’s so I could play his brother.”

The girl immediately relented and rubbed his head. “I didn’t mean that, sweetie. You’re just still pale and you’ve got dark circles under your eyes. They’re not going to want you for much today unless it’s one of the scenes from the Houses of Healing.”

He sighed, wishing he hadn’t bothered to drag himself out of bed to come in today just to be sent home. Half the cast and crew had been out at some point with the same bug. Nobody seemed in much of a hurry to get him back in front of the camera; after all, there weren’t that many scenes to film with him in them.

He understood, of course. He wasn’t the kind of well-respected actor that Viggo was, or as essential to the film as the hobbits, and definitely not pretty enough to be an elf.

“You need to go home and go back to bed, Dave,” the girl said, shaking her head.

 “I was feeling better till yesterday.”

 “Go home, sweetie,” she said, patting his shoulder. “Nobody will mind if you take one more day.”

Of course not, he thought, moving to stand up, but when he did that weird feeling that had started yesterday hit him again; the floor seemed to move out from under his feet, and everything suddenly lurched sideways. He grabbed for the back of the chair he’d been sitting in.

“Are you all right?” she asked, concerned.

“Yeah. Going to take your advice and go home and rest for a while, though.”

He made it out of the makeup trailer, but not easily. Shit; the unnerving sensation had gotten worse in the few hours since he’d arrived. Every step seemed to send the ground plunging off to the left or the right, and when he put his hands out in an attempt to balance, the unpleasant sensation of everything spinning around him almost made him queasy.

Definitely time to lay down for a while, he thought. Too much cold medicine, not enough sleep… something was doing something really unpleasant to him. He stumbled up the row of trailers, glad everyone else seemed to be off shooting and no one was around to see him. Anybody who did would have to assume that he was falling-down drunk at nine in the morning; it _felt_ like he was falling-down drunk at nine in the morning, except without confusion and stupor of alcohol.

He made it to his trailer without falling, but not without effort. He stumbled through the living room, considered attempting to get some aspirin out of the bathroom cabinet, but the couch was a larger and closer target, and he let himself fall onto it. He buried his face in the pillow, hoping this would make the spinning go away, but it didn’t; in fact, with his eyes closed it almost seemed to intensify.

Fuck, he thought, and reached out with one hand, groping for the small plastic trash bin he knew was somewhere near the end of the couch. He found it just in time to manage to throw up in it instead of on the floor.

 

“You seen Dave today?” Sean asked, glancing at Viggo in his full Aragorn attire complete with sword, leaning against a wall of the Rivendell council set and watching the crew fiddling with the lighting.

“No. Why?”

“Saw his car here, but haven’t seen him all day. I thought you were supposed to be shooting with him this afternoon.”

“Somebody said he was still sick and they’re just going to spend the whole day reshooting Rivendell stuff,” Viggo said. “Apparently they didn’t think you looked sufficiently pissed off during the council scenes.”

Sean scowled. “Well, I’m not happy about reshooting them, and it’s getting on into the afternoon and I’m hungry, and I’d like to strangle that little bugger Orlando for that stunt he pulled on me last week, so I should be able to be properly pissed off this time around.”

“Which stunt was that?”

“Little bastard got into my trailer and soaked down the mattress and all the chairs… ended up with a soggy arse, and cold, too…”

“That wasn’t Orlando,” Viggo said, grinning.

“Did you do that, you idiot?”

“Probably.”

Sean contemplated getting his hands around Viggo’s throat, but that would just result in the costume people running over to scold him for mussing their attire.

“You know, if Dave’s car is here, that probably means he’s in his trailer,” Viggo said, change of thought changing faster than Sean could keep up with it.

“What? You going to go pull the same thing on him?”

“No, you inconsiderate asshole. I was going to go check and make sure he was okay and see if he needed anything.”

“He has been looking a bit rough lately,” Sean said. “That flu was a bitch, for sure. Laid me right out.”

Viggo motioned to P.J., who was preoccupied with complaining about the fact that someone had forgotten Orlando’s contacts and that the damned elf was supposed to have blue eyes, in case they’d all forgotten, and that his left ear was on crooked. The director scowled and waved his hand in dismissal.

“Does that mean we can go?” Sean asked.

“Probably not,” Viggo said, shrugging. “Come on.”

 

They walked up the row of trailers, which was quiet in the mid-afternoon heat.

Viggo stepped up and knocked on the door of Dave’s trailer. “Hey! Dave! You in there?”

No one answered, but Viggo frowned.

“Screen door’s closed, but the regular door’s standing wide open, and the air conditioner’s running.”

“So?”

“So if you’re trying to cool off by running the AC, you don’t leave the door standing open, do you?”

He knocked again, and, still getting no answer, turned the handle on the screen door.

“Hey, Dave! You in here? We just wanted to make sure you were… oh, hell! Sean, get in here!”

Sean stepped into the trailer, which was hot and clammy in spite of the air conditioner trying to fight off the blast of heat from the open door. Dave was curled up on the couch, facing away from them. Viggo grabbed his shoulder and shook him sharply.

“Dave! Hey!”

“Ow… fuck. Please don’t,” he mumbled.

“Wake up,” Viggo said, shaking him again, less sharply, but persistently.

“Stop making me move. You’re going to make me sick again.”

His voice was slightly slurred but had a slightly panicked edge to it that alarmed both of them. Sean frowned and looked around, spotting the keys to Dave’s car sitting on the counter.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Viggo asked.

“Thinking he looks pretty bad and we should take him to the hospital to get checked out? Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.”

Viggo nodded. “All right, then. Go get his car.”

“What about P.J.?”

“We’ll blame it on the hobbits somehow. I’m not fucking around trying to find him and explain things right now.”

Sean grabbed the keys and went to retrieve Dave’s car. By the time he had pulled it around in front of the trailed and gone back inside, Viggo had managed to coax or drag Dave into a sitting position, but he seemed to be having difficulty staying that way, tipping slightly to the side. Viggo waved Sean over, concerned.

“Look at this. Dave, look at Sean for a minute.”

The blue eyes, slightly bloodshot, turned toward Sean, but after a moment, though he was still facing him, his gaze began to drift off to one side before snapping back to look at Sean again.

“What the hell is that all about?” Sean asked, alarmed.

Dave closed his eyes. “Please. Make it stop.”

“Make what stop?” Viggo asked.

“Everything’s spinning. The floor… I feel like I’m drunk. It’s the most fucked-up thing…”

Viggo motioned for Sean, and between the two of them they each grasped him under an arm and hauled him to his feet. The sudden change of position sent everything around him lurching and wheeling wildly, and he would have fallen if Sean and Viggo hadn’t been holding him up.

“Shit! This is worse… please… let me lay back down.”

“You can lay down in the back of the car,” Viggo said, hauling him toward the door. “We’re not leaving you here like this, though.”

“He’s about a dead weight,” Sean observed, shifting his grip.

Possibly worse than a dead weight, Viggo thought; at least a dead weight wouldn’t be constantly stumbling and trying to get its feet under itself only to lurch off sideways. He was glad the car was waiting for them, and relieved when they had managed to haul Dave into the back seat.

 “What’s going on?” Viggo asked, leaning around the passenger’s seat to look at him.

“Told you. Everything keeps spinning and moving. It’s making me sick to my stomach.”

“When did it start?”

“This morning. Just… out of the blue. I don’t know what…”

His voice was starting to edge on panic again, and Viggo reached back and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Hey… it’s okay. Whatever it is, they’ll be able to fix it soon.”

Dave kept his head buried under his arm through the drive, a futile attempt to stop the horrible spinning feeling. He could hear Sean and Viggo talking in the front seat, but couldn’t make himself focus enough to listen to them..

“Hey, Dave,” Viggo said, shaking him again. “We’re at the hospital. You’ve got to get up again.”

Too miserable to protest, Dave allowed himself to be dragged through the big sliding glass doors, and he slumped in a chair and half-listened to Sean rather sharply telling the receptionist that he was not drunk and had not had anything to drink and that there was something wrong with him, damnit, and would they get someone to see him right bloody now? He also heard Viggo adding, in calmer but threatening tones, that their patient had been throwing up all day and would certainly be doing more of it in their ER waiting room if they didn’t move along quickly. That apparently got their attention, because it wasn’t too much longer before a few men that weren’t Sean or Viggo were grabbing him and hauling him to his feet and walking him back through another set of doors and into a small white room and plopping him down on a cold examining table. Then there was a fairly pretty older woman with salt-and-pepper hair and glasses prying his eyes open and shining a light in them.

“Been vomiting a lot?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“You’re dehydrated. This guy over there is going to put an IV in your arm to give you fluids.”

“Oh. Will that make everything stop moving?”

“No,” she said. “The bad news is that there’s not much I can do about that, except give you some medication to help you relax and maybe make the dizziness a little less intense. The good news is that it should start to go away in a few days to a week.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“You’ve had an upper respiratory infection recently?”

“Yeah. Just started getting over it.”

“Mmm-hmm. I think you have labyrinthitis.”

“What?”

She tapped the left side of his head. “Can you hear out of this ear?”

“Not very well. My head’s been all stuffed up.”

She held up one finger. “Follow this with your eyes.”

For some reason he found this extremely difficult to do, as his eyes would attempt to follow it and then lose focus and drift in the other direction. She didn’t seem surprised.

“What’s that?”

“It’s called nystagmus. We’ll have to run a couple of other tests, but I’m pretty sure you’ve got labyrinthitis. It’s an irritation the labyrinth of your inner ear, which controls your balance. That’s why you’ve got the vertigo… the spins… and why everything feels like it’s moving. Your brain’s getting false signals telling it that you’re off-balance even when you’re not. And the nystagmus is your eyes trying to correct for your brain sensing that you’re moving when you’re not.”

“How about the throwing up?”

She smiled. “That’s mostly from the vertigo. The good news is that I can give you something to help control that until this all goes away.”

“It’ll go away?”

She nodded. “Usually the symptoms are worst for the first few days or a week, and then within another week or couple of weeks, you’re mostly back to normal. It may take you some time to get your balance back, so you’ll have to be careful for a while, and you may lose some hearing in that ear, but hopefully not. Think you can swallow some pills?”

He blinked at her. “I’ll give it a try.”

“This one’s for the nausea. And this is alprazolam… it’ll help with the nausea and help you relax a little bit.”

Either “relax a little bit” was an understatement, or Dave was much more tired than he’d thought he was, because a few minutes later he was dozing, and aware of nothing else until the doctor came and prodded him.

“Hey, there. Your friends in the waiting room want to come back and see you. The big British fellow’s being rather loud and unpleasant about it.”

“He’s loud and unpleasant about a lot of things,” Dave said. “Are they allowed to come back?”

“If you’ll tell your friend to stop being a jerk.”

“He’ll stop being a jerk as soon as he knows I’m all right,” Dave said, closing his eyes against the bright overhead light. “Being a jerk is his way of worrying.”

“I see. I’ll let them know they can come back.”

He dozed for a few more minutes, until he was rather rudely awakened by Sean slapping him on the shoulder.

“Hey, there! You look a bit better!”

“He’s not quite so dehydrated anymore,” one of the nurses observed.

“Feeling a little better?” Viggo asked, and Dave looked up to find him sitting next to him, studying his face closely with those intent gray eyes.

“Yeah. Everything’s still spinning, though.”

“That’ll keep up for a bit,” the nurse said. “Ought to settle down a little after a few days. Labyrinthitis is nasty… it’ll lay you up for at least a week before you get any part of your balance back.”

“Lovely,” Dave said, thinking of how unhappy P.J. and everyone else would be; Dave holding up filming again, Dave making things difficult again, Dave…

“Hey, no matter, as long as he’ll be all right,” Sean said protectively.

“One of you two going to look after him till he can get around, or is there a wife or someone to do it?”

“We’ll look after him,” Viggo said firmly, glancing at Sean.

Sean raised an eyebrow. “P.J. will shit bricks if you’re not on set.”

“I’m sick with the flu,” Viggo said.

“You’ve already had it.”

 “Look, just tell them all you saw me at my place and I had some kind of horrible stomach bug and spending most of my time in that bathroom and that it’s probably contagious. Last thing P.J. wants is the entire cast out with the shits.”

The nurse was listening to them with apparent amusement. “You guys are actors from that movie they’re filming.”

Sean rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Why? You want autographs?”

The nurse shrugged. “Nah. Was just thinking that it never occurred to me that actors get the shits just like everybody else.”

With that, he turned and walked out of the room. The doctor shook her head.

“I want him to stay at least another hour or two to get some more fluids into him through the IV. There’s not much we can do here that he can’t do more comfortably at home… stay off his feet and try not to move around much until the vertigo eases up. I’ll write a prescription for some anti-nausea medication and some anti-anxiety medication…”

“Anti-anxiety?” Viggo asked, frowning.

“Anxiety and panic attacks are pretty common with labyrinthitis. It’s a creepy, horrible feeling and it gets to people. Just in case. Better than ending up back in here with a panic attack. I’ll give him a few to take with him, but somebody’s going to have to go get the prescriptions filled for him tomorrow.”

“Not a problem.”

Dave glanced from the doctor to Viggo; without the unpleasant dehydration and nausea, he was feeling much more alert. He’d also noticed that the less he moved his head, the less unpleasant this effect seemed to be, but just turning his gaze from the doctor to his friend had sent everything whirling around again.

“You don’t have to do that. You’ve got things you need to do.”

Viggo shrugged. “I need a break anyway.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Just stop worrying about it and rest up for a little while so they’ll let you out of here,” Viggo said.

Dave glanced at Sean, who shrugged. “You know Viggo’ll do whatever he bloody well pleases, and he doesn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone says about it, including me, so don’t worry about it.”

“Fine,” the doctor said, steering them toward the door. “Go have your discussion in the waiting room and stop hanging around my ER, then. I’ll send somebody out in an hour or two to let you know if we’re ready to discharge him.”

 

“These chairs are hard as fucking rock,” Sean muttered, shifting in the waiting room chair as he reached to flip through the pile of magazines.

“It’s an ER, not a theater,” Viggo retorted.

Sean rolled his eyes and opened a celebrity gossip magazine. “Hmm. Says here that… bollocks, I can’t read this garbage.”

“Jealous you’re not in it?”

Sean snorted and glanced over at Viggo. “Look, Vigs, is this going to be another one of those things?”

“What things?” Viggo asked, looking away and feigning ignorance.

“Fuck you. You know what things. Things like that thing with Orlando.”

Viggo scowled. “He wasn’t interested. That’s fine. End of story.”

“Not for you. You were in a crappy mood for weeks. Besides, just because Orlando’s a good lad and took it all in stride and didn’t go off running his mouth doesn’t mean someone else won’t.”

“Much as I appreciate your concern, Sean…”

The double doors opened, and a young woman in a plain ponytail and scrubs popped her head out. “Hey… you two waiting for your friend? The doctor’s writing up his discharge orders right now, and then you can take him home.”

 

Dave shook his head as the doctor spoke, then wished he hadn’t, because this immediately made everything spin more rapidly.

“I’ll be fine. I don’t need somebody to keep an eye on me.”

“Really,” she said, unimpressed. “Stand up.”

Dave gingerly swung his legs down to the floor, closing his eyes in a futile attempt to avoid the nauseating tilting and lurching of everything around him that this caused. He had a fairly good idea what was going to happen as soon as he dragged himself to his feet, but he didn’t expect it to be quite as bad as it was; he very nearly fell, and would have tipped over and ended up on the floor if the doctor hadn’t pushed him back to sit on the bed.

“You won’t be fine. This won’t go away in a day or two. If you friend wants to help, just let him help for a few days, all right?”

Dave sighed. VIggo off set for a few days would be a disaster, he was sure, but at least right now he didn’t know what else to do besides accept the offer.

With Viggo on one side and Sean on the other, they managed to get him out to the car, and then into his apartment, a small first-floor set back from the street behind a row of hedges and a wooden fence. Finding that he was completely unable to convince his hand to maneuver the key into the lock, he finally surrendered and handed it over to Viggo, who opened the door and stepped in.

 “I should get back and let P.J. know you and Dave won’t be back today,” Sean said, giving Viggo a warning look. “You two all right?”

“”You can go, VIg…” Dave attempted.

“We’re fine,” Viggo interrupted.

Ignoring Dave’s protests, Viggo hooked the other man’s arm over his shoulder and steered him toward the bedroom.

“Stop arguing, Dave. I’m happy to help, all right? Don’t be a pain in the ass. And you know, it’d be easier if you’d just lean on me instead of trying to stand up straight… you’re making this a bit difficult.”

Dave sighed and tried to stop fighting the instinctive attempts of his body to fight the sense of falling. Finding Viggo holding him steady, he relaxed slightly.

“See? Come on… We’ll go dump you in your bed, and I’ll have a nap on the couch.”

Dave rubbed his face. “Ugh. My shirt smells. I smell. It’s got to be killing you.”

“Like we’re not used to all of us being sweaty and smelly at the end of the day,” Viggo said. “Bean’s got to wear all that heavy stuff, and mine’s just as bad...  Bean and I used to have contests who smelled the worst at the end of the day.”

“Who won?”

“Me,” Viggo said cheerfully. “Do you have a bath?”

“No. Just a shower,” Dave said, frowning and wondering if he could manage to keep himself from falling and cracking his head on the tile while trying to soap himself up.

“Hmm. Well, let’s see about getting rid of the clothes, at least, and then you can sleep for a while and I’ll try to think of something about the shower. You need help with your clothes?”

“I don’t think so… as long as I’m sitting down I should be okay.”

Viggo let Dave flop down on his bed, then tipped an imaginary hat and stepped back out, pulling the door closed behind him.

“Bit of privacy, after all that poking and prodding at the hospital. I’ll leave it cracked open, so if you need anything, just yell.”

“You can go, you know. I’ll…”

“Give it up, Dave. I’m staying. Go to sleep.”

 

Dave woke with what appeared to be morning sunlight slanting through the living room window, shining in his face. He covered his eyes with one hand and tried to take stock of things: as long as he wasn’t moving, the sensation of spinning and motion was subdued and tolerable. He even felt slightly hungry, and this, he realized, probably had something to do with the scent of food cooking in the kitchen. It didn’t explain how he had ended up on the couch, though, unless Viggo had hauled him out here at some point to keep a closer eye on him while he was cooking.

“Viggo?”

Viggo popped out of the kitchen, concerned, and immediately went to adjust the blinds to redirect the sun.

“You all right?”

“Yeah, as long as I’m not moving. Are you cooking?”

“Yeah. Eggs and bacon and toast.”

“Where did you get eggs and bacon?”

“Made a quick trip while you were sleeping. Thought you might feel like eating something. I stopped at the drugstore to get those prescriptions, too, and the pharmacist said to try some Benadryl along with it… said that helps some people. Want to try to sit up? Take it slow. You work on that while I work on breakfast.”

He darted back into the kitchen. Dave found that as long as he moved very carefully and tried not to turn his head, the vertigo was unpleasant but not overwhelming. By the time Viggo came back with two plates of food, he was sitting upright on the sofa and not feeling too awful.

“I always break the yolks,” Viggo said casually. “Bean says I’m impatient.”

“You? Nah,” Dave said, chuckling.

Viggo raised an eyebrow. “You too, now? Next it’ll be Orlando making fun of me.”

“You kidding? Orlando wants to be just like you when he grows up.”

Something odd flashed across Viggo’s face, but then he chuckled. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“I don’t think the hobbits ever intend to grow up. Even Billy and Austin, and they’re grown up already.”

Viggo grinned. “True. Hey… let me grab that bag from the drugstore and…”

“Viggo?”

Viggo paused. “Yeah?”

“You can go, you know. It was nice of you to stay and make breakfast and do all of that, but you don’t have to stay. I’ll be fine. I can do…”

“You can’t even stand up without falling,” Viggo pointed out.

“Well… I feel a little better than I did yesterday.”

“Good. Let’s see how you feel tomorrow.”

“You don’t…”

Viggo laughed. “You’re just trying to get rid of me. It won’t work. Bean already told everybody that I had some kind of horrible stomach bug… I guess his descriptions of my condition were fairly graphic, because apparently P.J. has ordered me to stay away from everyone until I’m better.”

Dave had to smile, imagining Sean vividly and cheerfully describing some drastically unpleasant intestinal symptoms.

“So, I’m not going anywhere, at least not today.”

Dave sighed. Much as he knew that Viggo being off-set was inconveniencing everyone and making filming nearly impossible, he would be lying if he said that Viggo’s company was unwelcome; he certainly still didn’t feel anything like himself, and still unsteady, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be alone with the vertigo and his thoughts and nothing to distract him. Dave studied him for a moment, taking in the dark hair falling over his face, the angular features and clear gray eyes. He’d heard Liv joking with some of the women on the crew that she suspected her Ranger would rather be kissing Legolas, but he’d laughed at it; it was a common topic on set how very pretty Orlando was with his long blond wig and immaculate cleanliness even when everyone else was covered with fake blood and dirt. Viggo’s face had definitely changed for a moment, though, when Dave had mentioned the younger man, and he found himself wondering if any of the jokes had a bit of truth behind them.

“What’s that look for?” Viggo asked, glancing up at him.

“What look? I’m not even sure which way I’m looking.”

Viggo laughed. “Never mind. How do you feel after some breakfast?”

“All right, but everything’s still spinning.”

“I was thinking I should run over to my place and get a change of clothes. I’ve been wearing these since yesterday. You promise to stay where you are and not go falling down?”

“Yeah. I promise.”

The combination of the pills, the disturbed night’s sleep, and the lack of anything else to do that didn’t make him feel worse eventually lulled him back to sleep, stretched out on the couch, and that’s where he was when he heard Viggo’s voice from the kitchen.

For a moment he thought Viggo must be talking to him and not realizing he was asleep, but as he dragged himself to full alertness, he realized the words weren’t for him.

“Don’t be an asshole. I told you, I’m just keeping an eye on him.”

A pause for a moment, as Dave closed his eyes, hoping to hear the rest of the conversation without Viggo noticing he was awake.

“You’re fucked in the head, Bean. You know the poor guy’s sick anyway. It’s not like… oh, come on. Really? That’s what kind of guy you think I am?”

Dave wasn’t sure what Sean said, but as usual, it turned Viggo’s flash of annoyance into a chuckle.

“Yeah, well, you’re still an asshole. Just because you can’t keep your hands to yourself doesn’t mean other people can’t either… yeah, I hear you. Fuck off, Bean.”

Dave felt a chill run through him. Fuck. Sean thought he had Viggo over here so he could… what? Make a move on him? What the hell? Maybe Viggo had looked odd for a moment when he mentioned Orlando because people had joked about the two of them… was he afraid they were going to be joking about him and Dave? After a few minutes, Viggo finished whatever he was up to in the kitchen and came into the living room. Dave tried to pretend he was just waking up and yawned.

“Hey, Vig. When did you get back?”

“Few hours ago. Thought I’d leave you sleep. Seems like if you’re going to be dizzy and miserable, sleep is the best place to be.”

He glanced up and found Viggo watching him with those clear gray eyes. Probably wondering what he was going to do.

 “You still want that shower?”

Dave blinked. “What?”

“You said you wanted a shower. You seem to be feeling a little better.”

“Oh…”

“Come on,” he said, holding out a hand.

Dave wasn’t sure what to do except accept the offered hand and let Viggo help him to his feet. The motion immediately set the floor underneath him heaving, but he closed his eyes and let himself lean against Viggo’s hand on his shoulder for balance, and after a minute it settled down. Viggo was watching his face closely.

“Better? Good.”

They made their way to the bathroom. Dave leaned on the sink, still in his boxer shorts, and watched with alarm as Viggo began to strip off his shirt, then socks, and then start on his belt buckle.

“What are you doing?” he asked, annoyed at how unsteady his voice sounded.

Viggo looked at him evenly. “Taking my clothes off.”

“Why?”

“So they don’t get wet,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “You okay?”

Dave’s mind raced as he watched Viggo casually stripping off his clothes. Fuck, fuck, fuck… first the thing with Orlando, and then overhearing the conversation with Sean, had put ideas in his head, apparently, because he’d seen Viggo pretty well stripped before - shy wasn’t a word that people usually used in regards to Viggo…

“Relax,” Viggo said, and it took a moment for the word to get through to Dave’s brain.

“Huh?”

“I won’t look at anything, I promise. I’ll even leave my shorts on. But I’m not taking you back to the hospital with a cracked skull after you fell in the shower. If it makes you feel better, you can leave your shorts on too.”

Before Dave could come up with an answer, Viggo was leaning into the shower, adjusting the water temperature. There really wasn’t any good excuse; he knew he desperately needed a shower and couldn’t think of any reason not to get one. At least, not any reason that wouldn’t just reinforce Viggo thinking he had weird things going on in his head. Except that thanks to Sean and Orlando, now he _did_ seem to have weird things going on in his head.

He looked up; Viggo was holding out a hand to him.

“Up. Come on. I’m just going to make sure I’m here to catch you if you fall, all right?”

The hot water did feel wonderful, and Dave stood under it for a while, eyes closed and hands pressed to the tiled wall to keep himself balanced. Water alone wasn’t going to get this grime off, though, so without thinking he turned to reach for the bottle of shampoo.

He hadn’t thought about the consequences of turning his head so quickly, but the next thing he knew, his balance was completely gone and the vertigo had slammed into him again; the wet floor seemed to drop out from under him, and the soothing rhythm of the water suddenly transformed into a disorienting pounding. He felt himself stagger and his shoulder hit the wall.

In the next moment there was something else on his other side, and he realized it was Viggo , catching him, pressing his back against the cool wall, his strong hands grasping Dave’s shoulders, leaning his weight against Dave’s chest to keep him upright, since he had abruptly become a dead weight.

“Breathe,” Viggo said, his voice low and urgent and very close.

Slowly, the sudden assault began to abate, and he could feel his heart pounding. He was sure Viggo could feel it too, with their bodies pressed together. As he began to come back to himself, he realized with sudden horror that Viggo was going to feel something else, too, if they stayed like this any longer.

“It’s fine… I’m fine…” he said desperately, trying to push VIggo back.

Viggo leaned back slightly, keeping his grip on Dave’s shoulders. “You realize I’m still holding you up, right?”

“I… look, I’m clean enough… can we just…”

Fuck. Too late.

“Dave,” Viggo said, his voice calm and mildly amused, but not any of the things Dave had expected it to be.

“Fuck,” he moaned, leaning his head back. “It’s not… please… I just…”

“Dave, stop. Are you listening? Anybody would get a hard-on with someone groping them in the shower, okay? Stupid bodies… always fucking with us, huh? Relax.”

“I’m sorry…”

Viggo frowned and leaned over to look at Dave’s face. “What’s wrong? Did you think I was going to be pissed off at you?”

“I don’t know…”

“Dave? Did somebody tell you something?”

“I heard you talking to Sean on the phone…”

Viggo inhaled sharply. “Shit. Look… I really am just here to help you. It’s not what Sean thinks it is…”

“What Sean thinks it is?”

Viggo lowered his head; it was his turn to be embarrassed. “He thinks I’m just doing this to get… closer to you.”

“He thinks… you? I thought he meant I was trying to…”

“What? You thought he was warning me about you trying to take advantage of me?” Viggo asked, suddenly grinning.

“Sort of, yeah,” Dave admitted, and he found himself smiling too, although he was still very aware of VIggo’s hands on his shoulders. “But… wait a minute. So Sean wasn’t talking about me… he was talking about you?”

Viggo smiled wryly. “Yeah. Warning me not to get myself into more stupid trouble with another guy who wasn’t going to be as nice about it as the other one was.”

“The other… Orlando?”

“I know what they were saying,” Viggo said, chuckling. “I wish any of those rumors were true… according to them, we were fucking each other behind every rock and tree we could find. He wasn’t interested. He’s a nice kid. He didn’t make me feel like an asshole and he didn’t go around running his mouth.”

“He’s crazy about you… I mean, maybe not like that, but he really likes you. He wouldn’t want to make things difficult for you.”

“No, but Sean figures not everybody’s going to be that decent about it.”

Dave’s brain finally managed to click the pieces into place properly. “So Sean was warning you not to…”

“Not to do this, pretty much,” Viggo said, and leaned in and kissed him.

For a brief moment Dave wondered if he had started to hallucinate, but Viggo’s wet, scruffy face against his was too real to be all in his head, and the heat of his mouth made the water pouring down on them feel suddenly cold.

After a moment, Viggo leaned back and looked away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

Dave’s mind groped frantically for something to say. “No… I mean…”

Viggo glanced at him hopefully out of the corner of his eye. Dave was acutely aware of Viggo’s hands on his shoulders, his weight still pinning him against the wall, and the slide of wet skin. His ability to speak seemed to have been completely erased.

“I’ll leave you alone if you want,” Viggo said, easing back to see if Dave would fall.

“I… wait. You… “

“Are you attempting to communicate?” Viggo asked, grinning in spite of himself.

“I’m not exactly Orlando,” Dave managed.

Viggo blinked. “What?”

“I’m not… you know. Twenty and blond and pretty enough to be an elf…”

Viggo laughed. “Orlando’s not blond and you know it. And his eyes aren’t really blue, either. Yours are, though. And everybody knows redheads are sexy.”

Dave snorted. “I thought that only applied to women.”

“I like redheads,” Viggo said, one hand rising to absently run through Dave’s wet hair.

Dave struggled to think of an appropriate response to this, but Viggo’s hand in his hair and his arm against his cheek was unreasonably distracting. Viggo apparently intended to continue the conversation without any more talk, though, as he pressed closer and kissed him again, this time with slightly more force. Dave closed his eyes and let full awareness of the situation finally hit him; as far as he could recall, he’d never been kissed quite like this before, not with such thoroughness, and not by anybody with facial hair, and definitely not with someone else’s very noticeable erection pressed against his hip. He realized this should probably disturb him, but he had other things to think about at the moment, like the fact that his wet shorts were clinging to and doing very little to disguise his own body’s reaction.

“Is this helping you feel a bit better?” Viggo asked, chuckling as he felt the results of his attention bump against him.

“It’s definitely not making me feel worse,” Dave admitted.

“Relax. I’ve got you.”

That didn’t sound like a bad idea, so Dave let himself lean against Viggo’s weight and let the hot water run over his shoulders. He felt Viggo reach for something, and after a moment of puzzlement he realized that what he’d grabbed was a bar of soap. He opened his eyes and glanced at Viggo quizzically.

“You don’t even have enough balance to stand up, Dave. Much as I’d like to do all kinds of nice things to you in this shower, it wouldn’t be very responsible of me, and if you got hurt I’d have a lot of explaining to do. Close your eyes.”

Dave obeyed, and felt Viggo rubbing the bar of soap through his hair, down his neck, over his chest. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when Viggo stepped back, steadying him with one hand while he did a very thorough job of scrubbing everything about his waist. Once the soap was rinsed enough for him to open his eyes, he looked down and realized Viggo was pressing the bar of soap into his hand.

“You get to do those bits yourself,” he said, grinning. “I’ll hang onto you so you don’t fall.”

Dave groaned and knew his cheeks were turning red, but there wasn’t much sense in leaving parts of himself dirty now that the rest of him was clean, so he reached into his soaked shorts with the bar of soap and lathered up, keeping his eyes tightly closed to avoid looking at Viggo. He was certain Viggo had to be laughing at him, because the soaping and Viggo’s hands on his chest and that very warm kiss still fresh in his mind were combining to make him even harder than he’d been before.

“Would you quit being so self-conscious?” Viggo said, amused.

“Umm… how exactly am I supposed to do that?”

“Oh, if you’ll let me, we can definitely work on that,” Viggo said confidently.

“Oh?” Dave asked, for lack of anything better to say as he rinsed the soap out of his shorts.

“Mmm-hmm. Because once you figure out how very, very much I want you, maybe you’ll get the idea that you’re not supposed to be embarrassed right now.”

This, of course, only served to make Dave even redder, and didn’t do a damn thing to settle his cock down, either.

“You’re awfully tense, aren’t you?” Viggo said, studying him.

“No… well, yeah, but…”

His words cut off abruptly when Viggo’s hand slid under the waistband of his shorts and joined Dave’s own hand on his cock. Dave gasped, and his brain tried to order his hand to push Viggo’s away, but his hand was not responding to his brain’s instructions, and neither was the rest of him, because his cock jumped eagerly at the touch.

“Let’s just see if we can help you relax a little,” he said, his tone casual and cheerful as his hand wrapped around Dave’s length and squeezed lightly, then set up a rhythm of steady strokes. Dave leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, and Viggo took the opportunity to lean in and put his mouth and tongue to work on the exposed skin of Dave’s neck. Right about when Dave started thinking that he should be doing something other than sprawling against the wall, he realized that there wasn’t much time to do anything else. He grabbed for Viggo’s wrist, but Viggo caught it with his free hand and pinned it against Dave’s chest.

“Dave. Don’t be stupid. If I didn’t want you to come for me, would I be doing this?”

There didn’t seem to be any arguing with that logic, and even if there was, Dave didn’t have the ability to put together a coherent argument at the moment. His hips jerked, and he moaned as he came.

His balance was entirely gone at that point, but Viggo caught him with an arm and chuckled.

“Relax. You’re fine. I suppose it’s a good thing we’re in the shower, though. Makes it easy to clean up.”

Dave shook his head and tried to focus on Dave’s face. “I… yeah.”

Viggo grinned. It occurred to Dave that the proper thing to do was probably to reciprocate in some fashion, but the shower was starting to spin around him again, and he had to rest his head on Viggo’s shoulder to steady himself.

“Enough for one day?” Viggo said, wrapping his other arm around Dave’s waist. “Come on. You look like some more napping might be in order. Probably ought to get rid of those shorts, though.”

“Oh,” Dave muttered, kicking off the soaked shorts into a corner of the shower as Viggo shut off the water. The next thing he knew, a towel was rubbing through his hair and over his skin, drying him, and then Viggo was steering him toward the bedroom.

“Feel like sleeping for a while?”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Dave said, having managed to regain some coherence. “What are you going to do?”

“Was thinking about a nap myself.”

“Oh.”

Viggo glanced at him. “Oh what?”

“Umm… that couch isn’t really very comfortable to sleep on.”

“You inviting me to bed, Dave?”

Dave found himself grinning. “I guess so. I was serious about the sleeping, though.”

“So am I,” Viggo said. “For now.”

 “You know, if you’d rather sleep on the couch, it’s okay… I know I’m…”

“Dave?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and let’s go take a nap.”

 

Dave woke with the light from the living room falling across the bed, his arm draped over the warm, sleeping body next to him, and a dark figure looming in the doorway.

“What the bloody hell is this, then?”

Viggo stirred beside him and groaned. “Are you fucking kidding me, Sean? Normal people knock, you know.”

“I did knock. Nobody answered.”

“That’s when normal people go away,” Viggo said, rubbing his face and disentangling himself from Dave to sit up.

“Since when do you know anything about normal people?” Sean shot back.

 Viggo rolled his eyes. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Making sure you two were all right, that’s all.”

Viggo scowled at him. “Bullshit. If you wanted to know if we were all right, you’d have called us on the fucking phone. You wanted to find out if there was anything going on.”

“Well, was I wrong?” Sean demanded, gesturing at the bed with the two men in it. “I thought we fucking talked about this, Vig.”

“No, _you_ talked about this. I tried to ignore you, but you’re very loud. What do you want?”

“Well, we could start with what the fuck you’re doing in Dave’s bed.”

Dave had been working on waking up; between Benadryl and anti-anxiety medication, his brain had been content in sleep-land and was more than a little reluctant to come out of it. Something about that last statement, though, managed to register. He opened his mouth to start trying to explain, make an excuse, tell Sean this wasn’t what he thought it was, but what came out wasn’t what he expected.

“It’s my bed. He can be in it if he wants.”

Sean raised his eyebrows. “Oh? And how’d he end up there, exactly?”

Dave still wasn’t at all properly awake, and it took the expression on Sean’s face to make him realize that he’d made his next statement aloud instead of just in his head.

“Cuz I wanted him there.”

Sean glanced at Viggo, who was sitting in the bed, glaring at him with arms crossed. “That ever occur to you, Mr. Protector of My Virtue?”

This struck Dave as unreasonably funny, and he burst out laughing. “I didn’t know I was a danger to your virtue.”

Viggo glanced at him and grinned. “I told you… redheads.”

Sean rolled his eyes, started to say something, decided against it, and closed his mouth.

“If you want to be helpful, you could go start a pot of coffee,” Viggo said cheerfully.

“Fuck off, Vigs,” Sean muttered, turning away and slamming the bedroom door behind him.

Dave sat up, wincing as the change in position started the spinning again; it had been nearly gone while he was laying down. “Ugh. What the hell was that all about?”

Viggo chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. Give him ten or fifteen minutes to calm down, and we’ll go out and he’ll be sitting in the living room complaining that you have shitty coffee.”

“Oh,” Dave managed, rubbing his eyes. “So does that mean it’s not safe to go into my living room for the next ten or fifteen minutes?”

“Definitely not,” Viggo agreed, smirking. “I don’t think he knew what to say when you told him you wanted me in your bed.”

“Did I say that?” Dave muttered, still trying to wake up completely. “Oh, yeah… well, I did.”

“Oh? What for?”

Dave tried to force himself to think of a rational and reasonable answer before he spoke, but his mouth had other plans and decided to pull rank on his brain.

“You make me feel good.”

“Hmm,” Viggo said thoughtfully, sliding closed. “I can make you feel a lot better.”

Dave shivered at feeling Viggo’s skin against his as Viggo pressed him gently but determinedly back down onto the bed, hands stroking up Dave’s arms to move his hands till they were resting on the pillow above his head.

“You stay just like that,” Viggo said, sitting back and looking him over. Dave felt himself turning red and started to move his hands to cover himself.

“No, no… none of that.”

He forced himself to lay still, watching Viggo’s face for mockery or scorn, but all he saw was appreciative interest and desire.

“There’s an awful lot of things I’d like to do to you,” Viggo said, lowering himself on his arms until his mouth could reach Dave’s chest and lick at it. “But probably not while Sean’s in the living room with steam coming out of his ears.”

Dave laughed. “Yeah… probably not a good idea.”

“That doesn’t mean there isn’t time for a little quick entertainment,” Viggo said, sliding up to kiss him and wrap an arm around his waist, pulling him until they were face to face and Viggo could hook one leg over Dave’s hip. “I don’t expect you’re much of a screamer anyway.”

“Not generally,” Dave said, breathless as Viggo’s tongue started working down his jaw and throat.

“Hmm. Another challenge for another day. For right now, though…”

He reached down between them and wrapped his hand around both of them.

“Shh,” he murmured against Dave’s neck, as Dave gasped. “There’s a very irritated Brit on the other side of that door and I’m not sure whose virtue he’s more worried about at the moment.”

“Oh, fuck,” Dave whispered.

Viggo grinned. “You have a free hand too, don’t you?”

“Umm… it appears that I do.”

He slid his hand down to join Viggo’s. VIggo curled his hand around Dave’s, directing its motion. It had never crossed Dave’s mind before that point that he would have his own cock and someone else’s in his hand at the same time, but the way Viggo kissed him seemed to erase all need for thought, and the lean, wiry body pressed against his own was just as ordinary and human as his was, and he found with some amusement that a certain twist of his hand had Viggo gasping and arching against him, breathing hard. Suddenly, for the first time since this whole business had started, he realized he had more than a little bit of power at the moment, and he started working on Viggo in earnest, but when Viggo was trying to keep his voice down as he pleaded for Dave not to stop, he stopped, leaving Viggo swearing and groaning, before starting again. This time VIggo’s hand was on him, stroking firmly.

“If you leave me hanging like that again, I’ll go talk to Sean and leave you to jerk off,” he whispered, grinning.

Dave didn’t have much of a response at that point, but he did have the satisfaction of noting that Viggo’s muffled exclamation as he came was much louder than his own, and that there was really absolutely no doubt that Sean had heard it and that Sean knew perfectly well whose muffled exclamation that was.

“Fuck,” Viggo murmured, catching his breath. “Now Bean’s really going to be wound up.”

Dave chuckled. “That’s your problem.”

“What?”

“I’m sick, remember? I can’t be forced to deal with pissed-off Bean in the state I’m in.”

“You rotten bastard,” Viggo muttered.

“Sorry,” he said, grinning against Viggo’s shoulder. “Definitely much too sick for that. When he’s done chewing you out, you can always come back in here and we’ll see about making each other feel better.”

Viggo gave him a sideways glance. “I’ve created a monster.”

“Nah. Not a very effective monster, if it can’t even walk across a room without falling.”

“Fine. I’ve created a bed-ridden lust-crazed monster.”

Dave considered this for a moment, then shrugged. “Could be. But it’s all your fault.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Nah… Bean’s going to do that for me, and he’s much louder than I am.”

Viggo muttered something vaguely insulting as he rolled out of the bed and rummaged for his clothes. Dave smiled to himself, pulled the pillow over his head to drown out the impending argument, and dozed off again. 


End file.
